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2012 (5) TMI 731 - SC - Indian LawsWhether on a complaint made to the Copyright Board under Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the said Board under Clause (b) of Sub-Section (1) can pass an interim order in the pending complaint - Held that:- In the instant case, the power being sought to be attributed to the Copyright Board involves the grant of the final relief, which is the only relief contemplated under Section 31 of the Copyright Act. Even in matters under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 and Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, an interim relief granting the final relief should be given after exercise of great caution and in rare and exceptional cases. In the instant case, such a power is not even vested in the Copyright Board and hence the question of granting interim relief by grant of an interim compulsory licence cannot, in our view, arise. Mr. Salve’s submission that the substratum of the scheme of Section 31 is commercial in nature and only involves computation of the charges to be paid to the holder of the copyright who withholds the same from the public, is no answer to the proposition that under Section 31 only an ultimate relief by way of grant of a licence on payment of reasonable charges to the copyright owner to publish and/or broadcast the work could be given. To grant an interim compulsory licence during the stay of the proceedings would amount to granting the final relief at the interim stage, although the power to grant such relief has not been vested in the Board. It is no doubt true, that Tribunals discharging quasi-judicial functions and having the trappings of a Court, are generally considered to be vested with incidental and ancillary powers to discharge their functions, but that cannot surely mean that in the absence of any provision to the contrary, such Tribunal would have the power to grant at the interim stage the final relief which it could grant. Such incidental powers could at best be said to exist in order to preserve the status-quo, but not to alter the same, as will no doubt happen, if an interim compulsory licence is granted. If the legislature had intended that the Copyright Board should have powers to grant mandatory injunction at the interim stage, it would have vested the Board with such authority. The submission made that there is no bar to grant such interim relief in Section 31 has to be rejected since the presence of a power cannot be inferred from the absence thereof in the Statute itself. Appeal allowed.
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